“You suck, you corn-fed bitch.” The heckler was even louder this time around. Bob picked out a large sandy-haired man in a tank top and faux leather pants sitting by himself a couple of tables away on the left. Bob pulled a small flashlight from his jacket pocket and moved in.

“Really,” Carlotta continued, ignoring him this time around, “you’d be amazed at the cruelty of responses from the folks in Iowa. These are people with a real sense of humor. One was ‘ Iowa, gateway to Wisconsin.’” She sold the joke with a broad sweep of her arm, but didn’t get much for the effort.

“Go the fuck back where you came from,” yelled the heckler. Bob was standing directly behind him and briefly turned on the flashlight over the troublemaker’s head. Carlotta was looking in his direction and nodded.

“My favorite slogan by far, though, was ‘Iowa, it makes you want Dubuque.’” This got a pretty good response from the audience but the heckler started to laugh uproariously. He knocked his drink over, spilling ice and alcohol onto the floor, and grabbed onto the edge of his table, laughing convulsively. He looked up at Bob, with something close to panic in his widening eyes. Bob grabbed the man under his sweaty armpits and hauled him into a standing position, then guided him toward the exit. The heckler got his legs under himself quickly and Bob was afraid he might try to resist being ushered out the door. Luckily the man seemed relieved as Bob pushed him outside into the heat.

“I wouldn’t come back,” Bob said, as a parting shot, and gave the man a practiced stare for good measure. The heckler said nothing, but walked slowly away down the pavement.

Carlotta was leaving the stage to scattered applause when Bob made it back to the interior of the club. Mutt and Jeff had disappeared, which was okay with Bob. “Thank you ladies and gentlemen,” he said to the audience. “She’s here Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Tell your friends.”

Bob met her backstage with a half-smile. “Not your best, but not awful, given the circumstances.” He’d guessed Carlotta’s wild card ability and had bluffed the truth out of her a few weeks earlier. She couldn’t do any real harm with it; make a crowd giggle, a few people laugh out loud, or-if she focused it on one person-completely incapacitate them.

“Right.” Carlotta wiped her forehead and combed back her damp hair. “Thanks for the help, but I had him spotted. Jerks seem to grow on trees in this burg.”

“That’s a fact, my dear. After six months here, I’d think you’d come to expect it. New York ’s reputation didn’t manifest itself out of thin air.”

Carlotta headed for her tiny dressing room. Bob followed. “God help me if I ever get used to rude assholes,” she said without looking back at him. “The dirt, yes. The noise, yes. Even the lack of anything green outside of Central Park or the A &P. But jerk-off morons are always going to piss this girl off.” She turned around at the doorway of her tiny dressing room. “I haven’t got time to talk. I’m meeting someone.”

“You’re certainly not a very traditional girl.” Bob fingered his watch and waited for a reply, but received only a roll of the eyes. “Most people suck up to their boss a bit, unless they’re very, very good at their job. You certainly don’t have more than one ‘very’ and possibly none at all.”

“You’re not going to get rid of me just yet, Mr. Cortland,” she said, and closed the door with finality.

Too true, Bob thought to himself. He wandered back over to the bar and poured himself a half-shot of scotch, wondering what it would be like to win a round with her. She certainly wasn’t smarter than he was. Well probably not. But he couldn’t match her obstinacy. “To good humor,” he said quietly. “Mine. And patience.”

He saw her flash out the rear exit in a short blue dress and almost-matching heels, blonde hair bouncing, and decided, with the help of the scotch, to try another approach on her. He had until he caught up with her to figure out just what that might be.

Once outside, the July heat swallowed him like a chip of ice in a cup of steaming coffee. Even in the early morning hours, the still, furnace-like air sucked the life out of everyone and everything. Carlotta was disappearing down the alleyway, but stopped short on the far side of a dumpster. Two men emerged from the darkness and stepped into her path. Bob couldn’t see them well and slipped into the shadows on the dark side of the alley, carefully removed a small revolver from his right jacket pocket. It felt bigger in his hand that it really was. He was hoping the same psychological phenomenon applied to the men he was going to try to stop.

“You’re coming with us. Any trouble, I hurt you.” The taller of the two men grabbed Carlotta by the arm. She tried to wrench away, but was pinned by his grip.

Bob moved out from behind the dumpster and trained his weapon on the man holding Carlotta, recognizing the pair as Mutt and Jeff. “Let her go,” he said, in as even a tone as he could manage. “I’ll shoot you both if I have to.”

Mutt stared at him, unblinking. “Now why don’t I believe that?”

Taking a deep breath, Bob pointed the end of the revolver slightly to one side of the man and pulled the trigger. The gun kicked uncomfortably in his sweaty hand and the bullet ricocheted off the brick alley wall and into a pile of crates, spraying chips of wood. “Because you’re stupid,” he suggested.

The pair turned and bolted toward the street. Bob aimed the gun toward the Mutt’s receding back, realized he wasn’t up to that, put the safety back on, and slipped the weapon back into his pocket.

Carlotta still stood unmoving, fists clenched. Bob quickly put his arm around her and got her moving back toward the club door. “You never have any shortage of admirers. Ever seen them before?”

She let out a deep breath. “No. Not until tonight. Show business isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” Carlotta looked into his eyes for a second, then turned her head. “Thanks.”

“You want to tell me anything?” Bob tried to make eye contact with her, but she looked away and walked slowly back into the club. “Somehow, I didn’t think so.”

He was in his favorite seat at the club, lazily rubbing his thumb over a cigarette burn on the table’s hard wood finish. Bob was tired and it was only late afternoon. The excitement of the previous night had kept him from sleeping. Not that insomnia was unusual for him. It even helped if you ran a late-night business. Even though he’d put on fresh clothes, he felt rumpled.

Carlotta had seemed more scared than he would have expected if Mutt and Jeff were just muggers, and she didn’t spook easily as far as he could see. Not to mention the fact that comedy clubs like his didn’t really pay very well and any thief with half a brain would know that. Something was up, he was sure of that, but he didn’t have a clue what it might be. Maybe Carlotta just made him stupid. He took a sip of lukewarm coffee. It was his fourth cup of the day. If he had to be tired, at least he would be alert.

Wes the bartender walked over with a half-empty pot of coffee and gave Bob a warmup, then headed back to his work cleaning glasses behind the bar. A native New Yorker, Wes was physically large, but not particularly good-looking, loved to laugh, and only poured heavy for regulars and attractive women. He was the first person Bob had hired when he opened the Village Idiot and the only original employee the place still had.

“Wes, am I an idiot?” Bob asked, without looking for inspiration in the steam swirling in his cup.

“No, boss. No one who has the good sense to hire me could possibly be an idiot.”

Bob knew Wes could have made a comment about Carlotta. The bartender had a good pair of eyes and a quick mind. “Thanks, Wes.”

“How about a raise?”